Bliss

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this deep cut from 2012, we are searching for platonic ideals longing for completion, engaged in epic quests for holy grails in science, linguistics, and world peace. And along the way, we’ll meet the dreamers and measure just how impossible their dreams are. First: a perfect moment. On day 86 of a 3-month trek to and from the South Pole, adventurer Aleksander Gamme (https://zpr.io/ryaJzt5vaNTZ) discovered something he'd stashed under the ice at the start of his trip. He wasn't expecting such a rush of happiness in that cold, hungry instant, but he hit the bliss jackpot.Producer Tim Howard (https://zpr.io/bfxEEMYHf5vT) brings us the incredible and tragic story of Charles Bliss -- the man that inspired this show. As Charles's friend Richard Ure and writer Arika Okrent (https://zpr.io/3gjsdSePpQbG) explain, Bliss believed that war was often caused by the misuse of language. Having lived through the hell of Nazi concentration camps, he set about creating the perfect language, based on symbols and logic. Years later, Shirley McNaughton accidentally discovered it, and started using it to communicate with her students -- kids with cerebral palsy who quickly picked up the language and made it their own. At first, Charles was thrilled...until he started to feel his original dream of saving the world was slipping from his fingers.And finally, co-host Latif Nasser (https://zpr.io/pJsnQSYWJLTe) explains how, on a cold, snowy farm in Vermont in 1880, a kid named Wilson Bentley put a snowflake under a microscope and started a lifelong quest to capture perfection. EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Tim HowardProduced by - Tim Howard CITATIONS: Videos: Aleksander and his glorious gift to his future self. (https://zpr.io/STUpZqWqrBwy)Books: Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Language (https://zpr.io/uqBLpYQr7xNT) Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (https://zpr.io/JpdC8rS7Uqjq) Duncan C. Blanchard, The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A Bentley (https://zpr.io/YaqeAw4XucRT) Ken Libbrecht, The Secret Life of a Snowflake: An Up-Close Look at the Art and Science of Snowflakes (https://zpr.io/DtZrbyFc3M75), Ken Libbrecht's Field Guide to Snowflakes (https://zpr.io/wg79x4HPCFun) W.A. Bentley, Snowflakes in Photographs (https://zpr.io/ccQfy9ZGFDDh) Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You
0:02.0	Wait, wait, you're listening to radio lab radio from W and Y
0:20.8	Okay, hello, hello
0:22.8	Hello, hey, how are you? We are super super excited to talk with you. Oh, same with me
0:30.0	I'm sorry about the delay and so it's fine. No, it's a quite some business life is crazy life is crazy. Yeah, no, but
0:36.0	You were so enthusiastic so I just I need to talk to this guys. They really mean it
0:42.1	This is Alex Alexander gumma gumma. Are you Norwegian all the way back? Yeah typical Norwegian?
0:49.0	You know if typical includes things like biking in Sahara and climbing Everest and things like that
0:56.4	He's kind of a professional
0:58.4	Adventure and we got him into the studio because he made a video last year on one of his trips get to you this video
1:04.8	It's it's maybe the most amazing internet video I have ever seen
1:11.1	I think so too
1:14.1	So let me just have to see for you. Okay, what you see in the videos this guy Alex
1:18.0	Kind of moving along this piece on skis this snowy
1:22.8	Snow-scape hmm. He's filming himself. He's got the camera in his right hand. Where is he exactly in Antarctica?
1:27.6	He's on a three-month trek to the South Pole and back by himself
1:32.2	And what he's been doing is every couple of days on his trip
1:34.9	You know every 200 kilometers or so he would bury stuff in the snow some some fuel and
1:40.0	And sometimes a little bit of gear that I didn't use was that just a light in your load? Yeah, you know
1:45.6	Because every ounce of unneeded weight has to go so in this video. It's day 86 almost three months since I left
1:53.0	That's three months of walking ten hours a day and I lost almost 25 kilos 55 pounds. He's exhausted
2:05.4	He's come upon his last cash so on the last
	...

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